Broadcast Blues

Broadcast television in America appears to be in an interesting sort of funk right now. As noted earlier, the Winter Olympics broadcasts are practically flatlining in the ratings thanks to diminished interest in the competition and evaporated interest in Bode Miller. Perhaps it was bound to happen; most winter sports are individual sports, while Americans mostly prefer team sports like baseball and basketball (not to mention football, so I won't!). It says something about this country that, for all our blather about individualism, it doesn't matter who you are or what you're like; you're not considered much of anything if you're not part of a group.

But the Winter Olympics's inability to register with viewers in the U.S. is only part of the story. Dig this: The three major networks - I won't consider Fox to be a major network until they start offering programming in the ten o'clock Eastern Time hour! - each premiered a new show in January, and they were all off the air by February, having aired only eight episodes between them. Paradoxically, CBS's "Out of Practice," the Henry Winkler-Stockard Channing snoozefest sitcom displaced by "Courting Alex" (which I still haven't seen) will be back next month, and yet another sitcom starring a "Seinfeld" alumnus ("The New Adventures of Old Christine," starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus) will debut on CBS soon. As if anyone cared. And this is just on one network. Meanwhile, NBC is bringing back a prime time game show ("Deal or No Deal"), along with a slew of new shows they've been promoting on their Olympic broadcasts, so obviously no one knows about them.

Could it be that American viewers, worn out by five years of war, terrorism, and Paris Hilton, are getting too restless to find anything entertaining on TV even as the major broadcast networks demonstrate their inability to give them entertainment? That's certainly no problem for Fox, whose "American Idol" is guaranteed to be on the air until the end of time - which, if Iran gets the bomb soon, could be next Wednesday. :-O Because as long as there are people who think they can be the next Mariah Carey or Luther Vandross, and as long as the recording industry is willing to debut a new singer every year - and put quantity over quality - there'll always be a place for a pop talent show on U.S. television.

And if that's the case, maybe I should consider Fox a major network, even if it does sign off for the night an hour earlier than the big three.